After finally having made my move to the West Coast, I worked the perfect promotion for someone new to the city of San Francisco. Last week, a street team of about 20 gathered to promote USA Network’s new TV show “Fairly Legal”. We hit all the busy spots in the city and even made our way to Berkeley and, let’s just say we made a lot of noise.

Fairly Legal is series about Kate Reed (Sarah Shahi) being a firm believer that justice can always be found, even if it’s not always in the courtroom.”Once a lawyer at her family’s esteemed San Francisco firm, Kate’s frustration with the legal system led her to a new career as a mediator”.

The promotion consisted of a street team, all dressed in the same attire to emulate Kate, mocking a protest and yelling the show’s taglines such as: “Get Kate, Mediate!” “Don’t Hate, Litigate”(on Haight Street) and “No Mitigation, Only Mediation”. Also, we handed out gray and white cookies because “justice is never black and white”.

While this promotion was being run in other cities, I assume that it received the most attention in San Francisco and Berkeley due to the fact that it was a mock protest. Many people in areas that are famous for protesting voiced their frustration with the promotion saying that they felt it was “out of line”. Well, being a publicity stunt, negative attention is still attention and therefore the promotion was effective. There were, of course, people who enjoyed the event as well, finding it entertaining.

What is better than kindness during the holiday season? Promoting it. Yahoo! is running a campaign called Ripples of Kindness. The idea is that everyone who does a good deed can inspire others and cause a ripple effect of kindness. The more people who join in, the larger the ripple will become. As Yahoo! says, this is “how good grows”.

To promote this cause, Yahoo! surprised people in cities across the U.S. right before Christmas Eve with an act of kindness. In Boston, the Yahoo! promotion team surprised consumers at a locally owned toy store called Magic Beans. We were given $6,000 to pay for people’s purchases when they got to the register. Up until the money ran out, every person who came to the cashier was told that their purchase was a gift from Yahoo!, and in return we asked that they repay the favor with an act of kindness. People were completely caught off guard, and the reactions were incredible.

For a taste of what a magical day it was, check out this video:

This was the ultimate experiential campaign because it left people with a contagious happy and thankful feeling. To join in on the goodness, be sure to add your act of kindness to kindness.yahoo.com

Philips Norelco recently launched the new SensoTouch 3D shaver and with it came ‘The Game Has Changed’ marketing campaign. The experiential marketing event was tied in with Disney’s TRON: Legacy. Philips Norelco offered tickets to an advance screening of the film in 16 cities, greater Boston being one of them. All of the advanced screening premiers took place at Imax 3d theaters.

The event had a Philips Norelco footprint set up where people lined up for the movie and included Tron character cutouts, displays of the shavers, and photo and poster give-aways. In my opinion the campaign was a great way to reinforce the prestige of the product. TRON and Philips Norelco may seem like a far-fetched collaboration, but offering complimentary tickets to an advanced screening of an eagerly awaited film definitely creates a prestigious brand image.

A little while ago I worked on an experiential event for Campbell’s Soup. Rather than marketing the soup itself, Campbell’s repositioned them self by marketing the fact that you could cook with Campbell’s Condensed Soup. The event was quite different from most sampling events because the event staff made roast beef sandwiches out of a mobile branded truck with a full kitchen inside. The event was half guerrilla, and half of the spots were planned. We passed out samples of the sandwiches along with recipes to people on the streets of Boston.

Brand repositioning is an extremely challenging tasks. Changing a consumers view on a brand is harder than getting the brand in their head in the first place. Using an experiential event to reposition a brand is a good idea because it gives consumers direct contact with the “reposition”. Also, Campbell’s went about it the right way by broadening their reach rather than trying to change the view of existing consumers. By repositioning, Campbell’s also differentiated them self from competitors.

The Cosmopolitan Hotel is an independent hotel that is opening up in Las Vegas in December. The $3.9 billion hotel and casino will feature condo-style rooms; a differentiating factor in Vegas.

The experiential campaign consisted of a plexiglass structure that gave attendees the “Cosmopolitan experience” as they were able to get a feel for what the rooms would be like as well a deck on top which mimics either the pool area or the porches attached to most of the rooms.

This particular promotion took place at the PGA Golf tour and was the only promotion of its kind at the event. Weather helped out the impact of the promotion, as the hotel –room structure was air-conditioned inside and the heat was unbearable. During the event we passed out ice cooled aroma therapy towels as well as fans and wristbands. On the fans and inside the wristbands, there was a code that attendees could text to enter to win a VIP stay at the hotel.

What I found most effective about this promotion was that when the attendees entered the mock hotel room there was a couch area where they could sit and talk to representatives from the hotel and get as much information as they wanted about it. There was no selling involved, so nobody felt pressured when they were inside.

Overall, I would rate the promotion as a success. It can be tough to market a hotel to another market during an event since it is intangible at that point. However, creating an atmosphere and a user experience is the best way to go in my opinion.

Will differentiation and the marketing efforts put forth make much of a difference when opening up a luxury hotel in an area that has arguably been hit the hardest by the recession? I guess we shall see..

I was recently fortunate enough to attend Jack Morton’s Brand Camp in Boston. The event was a day-long educational event on experiential marketing and branding. The day consisted of presentations from employees on the importance of experiential, examples of Jack Morton’s work and a group session where we teamed up and created a campaign for a brand we thought needed help.

Brand Camp was not only extremely beneficial for the attendees but it was also beneficial for Jack Morton as an agency . They successfully created the kind of experience that they claim to (and do) create for their clients for us, the next generation of marketers. There aren’t many marketing agencies out there, if any, that put efforts into influencing emerging marketers. This is key because how can you be “the best marketing agency” unless other marketers think of you as such? An interesting , creative and effective approach taken by Jack Morton.

Key points made at Brand Camp:

Experiences trump all in quest for meaning & happiness.

Simple can be better when it comes to branding

To be successful a brand must connect & interact

Experiential marketing is not just event marketing. Experiential is your experience with the brand through the journey.

Jack Morton looks at brands as verbs

Great advertising for a bad brand isn’t going to help

Marketers used to have control but now the consumers do. Marketers have become orchestrators.

Brands should never confuse,ignore,break brand promise or try to be something they aren’t

Brands that are successful understand their audience, take risks, have a “story” & broadcast commitment

Overall, I rate the event as a grand success. I learned, got the opportunity to network, gained insight into the agency and I now have an overall pleasant feeling for the Jack Morton Agency.

I recently read an article about how Blackberry users are running out of loyalty. The article stated that “while 89 percent of iPhone owners plan on getting another iPhone, and 71 percent of Android buyers plan to re-up, only 42 percent of BlackBerry owners plan to stick around”.

Around the same time I read that article, I was in the middle of working a month-long gig promoting Blackberry. The marketing that Blackberry has been doing recently is pretty unique and it shows how Blackberry is trying to stretch their demographic and create brand loyalty. The two different promotions I was working were at the popular downtown bars in Boston as well as the Black Eyed Peas Tour. Both events, which were run by different marketing companies, consisted of educating and encouraging Blackberry users to use BBM (which stands for Blackberry Messenger, a feature that is exclusive only to Blackberry). I found it interesting that Blackberry is extending their demographic to include young adults in a nightclub setting when their primary target has always been business professionals; a smart move in my opinion if Blackberry wants to keep up with the competition. I also found it interesting that Blackberry’s goal was to make sure their users become accustomed to using BBM. This is also a smart move because it will create loyalty and it is Blackberry’s biggest differentiation from other smartphones. Along with creating loyalty, the promotion of BBM will also encourage users to pressure their friends to get Blackberry so they can chat through the messenger. The only fault with the marketing, in my opinion, was the timing. This type of extensive experiential marketing should have been done about a year ago, before the other competitors were launched. I think Blackberry realized they were losing loyalty a few months too late and could have held on to some of its younger users if these events were done earlier.

Some Pictures of the bar events.. More from the Black Eyed Peas events to come..